ic_c_protocol

IC C Protocol Functions

This manual page lists some of the functions of the IC C runtime
library that are used internally for the IC protocol.

The listed functions are used internally by generated C client
and server code. They are documented here for the advanced user that want to replace the default protocol (Erlang
distribution + gen_server) by his own protocol, For each set of
client or sever functions below with prefix oe, the user
has to implement his own set of functions, the names of which
are obtained by replacing the oe prefix by Prefix.
The Prefix has to be set with the option
{user_protocol, Prefix} at compile time.

The following terminology is used (reflected in names of
functions): a notification is a message send from
client to server, without any reply back (i.e. a
oneway operation); a request is a message sent
from client to server, and where a reply message is
sent back from the server to the client.

In order to understand how the functions work and what they do
the user must study their implementation in the IC C
library (source file is ic.c), and also consider how they
are used in the C code of ordinary generated client stubs or
server skeletons.

Client Protocol Functions

The following functions are used internally by generated C
client code.

Sends a client request and receives the reply according to
the Erlang distribution + gen_server protocol. This function
calls the oe_prepare_reply_decoding function in order
to obtain the gen_server reply.

send_ms and recv_ms specify timeouts for send
and receive, respectively, in milliseconds.

int oe_prepare_reply_decoding(CORBA_Environment *env)

Decodes the binary version of the tuple {Ref, X},
where X is to be decoded later by the specific client
decoding function.

Server Protocol Functions

The following functions are used internally by generated C
server code.

Decodes the binary version of the tuple {'$gen_cast', Op} (Op an atom), or the tuple {'$gen_cast', {Op, X}}, where Op is the operation name, and
where X is to be decoded later by the specific
operation decoding function; or

decodes the binary version of the tuple {'$gen_call', {Pid, Ref}, Op} (Op an atom), or the tuple
{'$gen_call', {Pid, Ref}, {Op, X}}, where Op>
is the operation name, and X is to be decode later by
the specific operation decoding function.

int oe_prepare_reply_encoding(CORBA_Environment *env)

Encodes the beginning of the binary version of the tuple
{{Ref,X}, where X is to be filled in by the
specific server encoding function.